Best Science Books 2012: Brain Pickings

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.

Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.

Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learningby Gary Marcus

This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinkingby John Brockman

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Storyby Jim Holt

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Businessby Charles Duhigg

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselvesby Dan Ariely

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talkingby Susan Cain

Information Graphicsby Sandra Rendgen

The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolutionby Faramerz Dabhoiwala

Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolutionby Theodore W. Pietsch

The Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons, 250 Milestones in the History of Medicineby Clifford A. Pickover

Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomistby Martin Clayton

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Presentby Eric Kandel

A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science by Robert McCracken Peck, Patricia Tyson Stroud, Rosamond Purcell

I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets. If you see one that I haven't covered, please let me know at jdupuis at yorku dot ca or in the comments.

For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn’t a science book is squishy at best, especially at the margins, but in the end I pick books that seem broadly about science and technology rather than something else completely. Lists of business, history or nature books are among the tricky ones.

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Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the…

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the…

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the…

Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year…

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